Four Days: A Gripping Neo-Noir Thriller, page 1
FOUR DAYS
And Tropical Noir
IAIN RYAN
Lamb House Books
ISBN: 978-0-6458735-0-4
Buy the books direct from www.iainryan.com
Everything in here is completely fictional and imaginary; any resemblance the characters or settings may bear to actual circumstances or to a living person is entirely coincidental. I just make this stuff up.
Ryan, Iain. Four Days (Tunnel Island Book 1). Lamb House Books. Kindle Edition.
Copyright © 2023 by IAIN RYAN, except the part on page twelve that reads ‘He’d loved her since high school’ which is almost definitely something I borrowed from The Nation Blue. I wrote parts of this book listening to the band’s Damnation album, which tells you everything you need to know about my mindset at the time.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover design by Damonza.
Contents
FOUR DAYS
TUNNEL ISLAND BOOK 1
I. TUNNEL ISLAND
1993
Prologue
II. CAIRNS
Chapter 1
Friday, September 14, 1984
Chapter 2
Tuesday, October 9, 1985
Chapter 3
Wednesday, October 10, 1985
Chapter 4
Thursday, October 11, 1985
Chapter 5
Friday, October 12 To Friday, February 2, 1985
III. BRISBANE
Chapter 6
Monday, February 4, 1985
Chapter 7
Thursday, February 7, 1985
Chapter 8
Thursday, February 7, 1985
Chapter 9
Friday, February 8, 1985
Chapter 10
Saturday, February 9, 1985
Chapter 11
Sunday, February 10, 1985
Chapter 12
Tuesday, February 19, 1985
IV. PURGATORY
Chapter 13
Wednesday, February 20 To Sunday, November 10, 1985
V. CAIRNS
Chapter 14
Monday, November 11, 1985 To Wednesday, January 15, 1986
Chapter 15
Thursday, January 16, 1986
Chapter 16
Monday, January12, 1986
VI. FOUR DAYS
Chapter 17
DAY ONE
Chapter 18
THE HISTORY OF IT
Chapter 19
DAY TWO
Chapter 20
DAY THREE
Chapter 21
DAY FOUR
VII. TUNNEL ISLAND
1993
Epilogue
TROPICAL NOIR
COLLECTED STORIES
THE DEATH TWINS
Tunnel Island, March 4th, 1994
NEW ANCHOR
Moreton Bay, Brisbane, Australia
EXPENSES
THE END OF IT FOR ONE OF THEM
TWO DAYS
WHAT TO READ NEXT
ALSO BY IAIN RYAN
Subscribe
Contact The Author
For Lee Earle
FOUR DAYS
TUNNEL ISLAND BOOK 1
Part One
TUNNEL ISLAND
1993
Prologue
JIM HARRIS WALKED ALONG THE dark path. The scrub was thick around the headland—high dry grass and short trees—but it couldn’t slow the pace of the coming storm. A southerly wind blasted in over the ocean, washing Harris back and forth as he stumbled along. It was a bad night for it, but he knew the way: he diverted off into the raw bushland and arrived at a set of timber stairs. At the top, up above the canopy, he came to a wall. There was a gate, with a box mounted beside it. He opened the box and pressed the intercom.
“It’s me,” he shouted, over the gale.
The gate buzzed open.
Harris made his way up The Theodor Club’s long lawn, past the pool and rock garden, to the rear entry where a security guard stood by the door. As Harris approached, he nodded into his earpiece and stepped away.
Inside, The Theodor was busy for a Tuesday, most of the booths full, stray businessmen sitting by the bar, and a couple slow dancing in the corner. Behind them, the club’s banner—a tall, red curtain—ran floor to ceiling. At the far end of the curtain, a girl let him into the corridor behind.
“Same room as always,” she said. “But Jackie called in sick, so you’ve got the new girl. I tried to call.”
Harris stopped.
“She knows her stuff,” said the girl.
“Okay.”
He found the room and knocked. A tall brunette opened up. She had crisp green eyes and wore a white terrycloth robe, a gold chain resting on her chest. The resemblance was immediate and uncanny, almost painful.
“Damn, you’re right on time,” she said. “Come in. I’m Lauren.”
She had everything laid out on the bed. Harris went over and looked at the blue uniform there.
“Policeman, huh?” she said.
He shrugged and unbuttoned his shirt.
“You want a drink?”
He shook his head. “I don’t drink.”
“Right. I might actually have a little bump, if that’s okay? It helps me work.”
“Sure.”
“You want a go?”
He put the shirt on. “I’m even worse on the gear.”
She laid out her drugs and snorted them back. With the uniform on, he went to the table and sat across from her. The coke pinned her eyes; they blazed. Her hair was everywhere, and it was long.
Memories volleyed for attention inside him.
The eyes.
He could feel her in them.
She laughed a little. “So, what’s the story?”
“I want you to hurt me,” he said.
Part Two
CAIRNS
1
Friday, September 14, 1984
HE FUCKED UP, SO they sent him back to Cairns. Back to the beginning—back to Sarah Hannon, and back to this.
Sarah stood by the window and smoked, the shirt of her police uniform hanging open.
He said, “You ever think about leaving?”
She pointed her cigarette out the window and asked, “What? And miss all this?”
Harris went to her. He took the smoke from her hand and sucked out a long drag. Down below, the city stretched out to the sea. It looked the same, exactly the same.
“Brisbane didn’t do much for you,” she said.
“It got me out of uniform.”
“And yet here we are,” she said.
“Here we are.”
Ten years later.
He’d loved her since high school.
She was married now.
The higher-ups in the Brisbane Police Department knew the score. They had just the right penance in mind: they’d sent him home.
The whole thing had been a case of bad luck. In Brisbane, no one crossed the Agrioli family. They were a protected species, and Harris knew it. But the Agriolis had a new recruit, a cousin fresh out of the clink, and Harris didn’t know him. But he should have: the fat prick looked just like the rest of them.
If only he’d had his head together.
It didn’t turn out that way.
The new Agrioli guy, Roberto, decided to lay a hand on one of the working girls. They were all in The Roxy and Harris caught a glimpse of it. He knew the girl, some kid from Dalby, barely out of her teens. Harris didn’t see how it started, but it ended with Roberto screaming in her face. He had her backed over a pool table, his huge hand wrapped around her throat. It was a bad scene; tears pouring out of the girl while all the dumb fucks watched on, drinks in hand.
Harris moved fast. His first blow caught Roberto in the side, opening him up. He took a handful of the man’s scalp and hit him hard in the centre. That was all it took. Roberto went over, splitting his head on the pool table on the way down. The last clear thing Harris remembered was the spray of blood hitting his shirt. Then something heavy slammed into him from behind.
He came to in a squad car. “Where are we?”
The beat cop in the passenger seat didn’t even turn round. “This dickhead has nine lives.”
The driver laughed. “Eight now.”
Harris woke up in the hospital the next day to find the Inspector waiting by the bed.
“You fucked up, Jim,” said the Inspector. “You fucked up bad. Worse than you think. A lot worse.”
That’s why they sent him north.
Back to Cairns.
Back to this.
Sarah Hannon put her hand up to the window. Rain was thrashing the glass. The long monsoon of September ’84. He unzipped her skirt and let it fall. She went to the bed and took off the rest.
“Close the blinds,” she said.
The dark made it worse. Her body felt the same. Full breasts and thighs. She was breathing hard, her hand on the same part of his shoulder as always. The history and chaos sliding back into him.
They hadn’t lasted a week before ending up here. It scared him—Harris knew her. She was, and probably always would be, a hole he couldn’t crawl out of.
Couldn’t and wouldn’t.
He had to say it out loud: “We were kidding ourselves about this never happening again.”
She didn’t answer. She kept moving under him.
He closed his eyes.
“We should stop,” he said. “This is crazy.”
“We’re not stopping.”
Three hours later Sarah was back with her husband and Harris was kneeling on the tiles, wiping vomit from his face.
2
Tuesday, October 9, 1985
BUILT TO WITHSTAND THE BLAZING sun and the humidity, the Cairns police station had a dank, muted feel to it in the rain. There was never enough light, even though every desk had a lamp. They were all on today, except Harris’s.
“You okay?” said a voice from across the room.
Harris wiped his eyes. A young constable stood in the doorway—his name was Pete or Rob or Sam, something like that. He was the only copper in Cairns who gave Harris the time of day. He was in the sin bin as well.
“Bulb’s blown,” said Harris.
“I’ll have a look around for one. You don’t look so good, sir. You want to go back to the hotel?”
“No, I’ll just have a…” Harris opened a drawer and scratched around for his box of aspirin. “Do they need us?”
“McArthur wants us for an arson up the coast.”
“What is it?”
“Nothing serious. Fire on church property, no casualties.”
“And they need a CIB detective for this? No prizes for guessing the denomination, then.”
“I guess not, sir.”
“You go to church?” Harris asked. He dropped the painkillers into a dry glass.
“Only on Sunday,” said the constable. “It’s Andy, sir. Andy Peters.”
“Peters, right. Go get the car.”
The job was a wash. An hour’s drive and a straight-up public ass-kissing at the other end. Turned out a priest had been storing the parish hand-me-downs in a shipping container out on the road, and in the night, someone had set the thing on fire. Case closed. After a cup of tea with the priest and the old lady who’d called it in, they all went and stood under umbrellas and peered into the container. One of the doors hung open and Peters yanked the other back. The smell of charcoal, burnt plastic, and hair drifted out.
“I don’t know why anyone would do this,” said the priest.
“It’s bloody kids,” Harris said.
Peters turned on his flashlight. They stood at the mouth of the thing and watched the beam scan around. Harris’s stomach churned at the thought of a body or a torso propped up in the ash, but the thing was empty.
“Write it up,” Harris said.
“What do we do now?” said the old lady.
“In this rain, there’s not much we can do.”
The priest lit a cigarette. He was an old bloke, on his last go-round. “I went to bed last night and I just knew I should have padlocked it. I just knew.” He exhaled another drag and the smoke hung under his umbrella like a cloud. “So, no chance of finding these kids, then, I guess?”
Harris looked at Peters.
“We’ll look around,” Peters said. “But I don’t think we’ll find them. You probably have a better idea than us.”
The priest nodded. “The things the Lord reveals belong to us, the rest we have to accept, I guess.”
“It’s all the Lord’s work,” said the old lady.
Harris stared back into the container. “This will teach you two for doing the right thing.”
In the car, Peters turned the engine over and put the wipers on full. “I know a place for lunch. Do you need to get back, sir?”
Harris shook his head. “Nah. And enough with this sir shit.”
They drove out to the highway and north to Port Douglas. Peters had a relative working the bar at the Court House Hotel, and for two hours they sat upstairs and drank and watched the grey sky drizzle down into the ocean. The beer helped; Harris started to come back to himself. Peters could hold his drink.
Harris asked him, “You married?”
“Not yet. There’s no one up here. You?”
“Nah, not cut out for it.”
“I figure Brisbane is where I want to be.”
“There’s a lot of people there, mate,” said Harris. “It was a shock to me when I first moved down, let me tell you.”
“Yeah, I figure it’s the spot,” said Peters.
Harris slept most of the way home, and it was dark when they got in. There was a note waiting for him at the station desk: some of the Brisbane Licensing boys were flying in. They requested his presence at the hotel bar, at five-thirty, night after next. Harris tossed the note and started back to the hotel on foot. He was a block away when Peters pulled up beside him in a battered white utility.
“Get in.”
As they pulled up at the hotel, Peters looked out of the windshield at Sarah Hannon, in plain clothes, standing front and centre in the lobby—clear as day.
Harris said, “Do you know Constable Hannon?”
“We went through the academy together.”
“She’s an old friend.”
“Okay,” said Peters, but Harris caught it. The kid had slept with her or knew her well enough. One of the two, and either was too much when it came to Sarah. As Harris waved Peters off, the kid looked more worried than jealous.
It was not a good sign.
Hannon showered.
Harris poured himself another drink.
Cairns lay dead in its grave. Eight o’clock, barely a car on the road. Lights out.
The phone rang. He let it go.
Hannon came back out, dressed to the nines. “I’ve got to go. I’m supposed to be out with the girls.”
“How bright’s this bloke of yours?”
“He’s a PE teacher, Jim.” She ran a hand down the side of his face, the tips of her fingers combing through his beard. “I should never have married him. You know that, right?”
“You should never have married anyone.”
Her green eyes burned.
She slapped him and walked out.
The silent TV sprayed light over the hotel room. He found himself sitting up in the bed—must have fallen asleep.
The phone was ringing again.
He rolled over and picked it up.
“Harris,” he said.
“I heard you had slithered back into town. If you had any brains at all in that thick fucking head of yours, you’d go back to Brisbane where you belong.”
“Dad?”
The line went dead.
3
Wednesday, October 10, 1985
HARRIS STARED INTO THE bathroom mirror and cursed his luck.
Fuck Hannon.
Fuck Agrioli, the fat fuck.
And fuck this Dawn of the Dead Cairns bullshit too, with its furnace heat creeping in at four in the morning.
He moved closer to his reflection. The city had already taken its toll. The skin under his eyes hung dark and loose, while a sheen of sweat covered his bulk. His broad shoulders had started to slacken. A paunch protruded from his wife-beater. He pushed a hand over the gravelly skin of his face and tugged at his cheeks. He closed his eyes.
Fuck Jim Harris.
It wasn’t all about luck.
That night months back, with Roberto Agrioli in the nightclub in Brisbane, that had started the same way as a hundred others. Knock-off drinks with the boys, dinner-drinks with Dyer, his partner—a much younger man—and then late-night drinks in some club in the Valley.
But it wasn’t any old club that night, it was The Roxy, the shithole to end all shit-holes. The Agriolis had it stitched up, and people could buy just about anything in there.
Harris had kept to the bar. He’d stayed in the dark, smoked his cigarettes, and let Dyer work the room. It was the kid who brought girls back. One of them spoke like an American, had smelled of weed and soap. He must’ve been drunk because they all ended up in a booth together, four drunk girls and two drunk cops. Harris usually wouldn’t let it happen.
